


Where Your Horses Are

by TakingOverMidnight3482



Series: Julie and the Phantoms One-Shots: Ghostly Mishaps [11]
Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: Alex is Protective of Reggie, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Luke is kind of a jerk in the beginning, Mild Language, Note: I Do Not Know How to Write Country Music, but it's ok we love him anyway, did i write home is where your horse is? yeah kinda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-03
Updated: 2020-10-03
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:27:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26787433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TakingOverMidnight3482/pseuds/TakingOverMidnight3482
Summary: “Have you ever actually read the song?” she asked softly, looking up at him with that…glintin her eye that she usually got when talking about her mom.Luke let his hands fall, leaning on his elbows. “No,” he admitted, feeling guilty. “I…I thought he was kidding at first so I thought it would just be like…a joke.”Julie looked disappointed in him, which was worse than being angry at him. She shuffled the papers back into their proper order and walked over to Luke, glancing back down at the pages before handing them over. “Maybe you should.”
Relationships: Luke Patterson & Reggie (Julie and The Phantoms)
Series: Julie and the Phantoms One-Shots: Ghostly Mishaps [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1925116
Comments: 50
Kudos: 774





	Where Your Horses Are

**Author's Note:**

> Did I wake up from a dream the other day in a cold sweat with the urge to write "Home is Where My Horse Is?" Yes, yes I did. This is lowkey inspired by a tumblr post from we-are-all-alex about the song having a deeper meaning (which, tbh, a lot of country music is way deeper than most people realize). 
> 
> Please note that I rarely, if ever, write lyrics, and I have certainly never written country music before, let ALONE written a country song from the perspective of a fictional ghost bassist. So take it with a grain of salt lmao.

Honestly, Luke would never fully understand why Reggie was suddenly so dead set on creating a country album for _Julie and the Phantoms_. He’d never really had an interest in country before they died, as far as Luke could tell. The only thing even remotely country about him was the flannel he constantly had around his waist and on his person, but Luke had always figured that was more sentimental than anything.

It wasn’t that Luke didn’t like country music – he thought it was good, and that country singers all had a really nice twang that he just couldn’t quite pull off. He respected country music and it’s artists, it just wasn’t his jam.

But ever since bringing it up with Julie (in a way that Luke had written off as a joke), Reggie had been nagging him non-stop about the idea. It had been a little funny at first, but now, when Luke was finding _Home is Where Your Horse Is_ tucked into his personal song book for probably the fifteenth time, he was a little fed up.

He sighed, shutting his eyes and trying very hard not to snap. The others were chatting behind him, waiting for him to grab his new notes for rehearsal, and he really didn’t want to yell. “Reggie,” he said through gritted teeth, yanking the pages out. “For the... _last_ time…we’re not doing your stupid country song.”

It came out harsher than he intended for it to, and the happy chattering behind him stopped. For a moment, no one said anything, and then Reggie’s voice, more timid than he’d heard it recently, spoke. “I just…I think there’s something there.”

Luke stood up and turned, gesturing the pages at him. “Dude. People don’t go for country like they used to. Tell him Jules, you told me.”

Julie looked frozen, very much like she did not want to be put in the middle. “I-I mean yeah, country is…different these days, but it doesn’t mean people don’t like it still.”

“We can do better without it.” Luke tossed the papers onto the sofa, anxious to be done with the conversation. “More people will listen if we stick to what we’re known for.”

As he grabbed his guitar, Reggie set his own down forcefully. That was when Luke saw his trembling hands, his shaking lower lip, and he realized he had fucked up. “Since when do we care what people have to say about what music we make, Lucas?” he snapped.

He vanished from the garage and Luke felt his jaw fall. Alex stood from where he’d remained silent at his drums, tossing a scowl at Luke. “Not cool, dude.”

Alex disappeared as well, likely to find Reggie, and Luke groaned, setting his guitar back down and sinking onto the chair closest him, burying his head in his hands. “I fucked up,” he muttered to the floor.

“Yeah, no kidding,” Julie said dryly, sounding annoyed, and Luke flinched. He _hated_ when Julie was annoyed, because she rarely got mad, and when she did, it meant she was pissed.

She didn’t say anything further, nor did she come over to Luke. A moment later he heard papers shuffling, and when he peeked up through his bangs, he could see her studying Reggie’s sheet music. He watched as her eyes softened, her lips parted, and her shoulders slumped.

“Have you ever actually read the song?” she asked softly, looking up at him with that… _glint_ in her eye that she usually got when talking about her mom.

Luke let his hands fall, leaning on his elbows. “No,” he admitted, feeling guilty. “I…I thought he was kidding at first so I thought it would just be like…a joke.”

Julie looked disappointed in him, which was worse than being angry at him. She shuffled the papers back into their proper order and walked over to Luke, glancing back down at the pages before handing them over. “Maybe you should.”

Luke took the music and Julie left without another word, leaving Luke to stare down at the pages with a twisting ball of self-loathing in his gut. Reggie’s handwriting was neater than his own, not quite as good as Alex’s, but still very legible. It looped and connected, like he was writing cursive without realizing that he was writing cursive.

~~

_Windows shattered, pictures thrown_

_This ain’t no place to call a home._

_Pack my bags, I gotta go_

_There must be something better out there._

_The road is long, my head is high_

_I’m marching on through clear blue skies._

_At the end of the trail, I know where I’m gonna go._

_The three musketeers, not the ol’ lone ranger_

_Climbing up the porch deck, I’ve never been a stranger_

_Hop in the van, shotgunnin’ it and rarin’ to go._

_Guitar in my one hand, pick in the other_

_You, me, the team of us, a rag tag band of brothers_

_Out of that house, nothing could be better than this_

_They say home is where your horse is_

_Saddles worn, my spurs were achin’_

_Going it alone had my heart all shaken_

_Ain’t never gonna get back on my feet._

_Family lines, drawn crossed between us_

_You said, “Step on over brother, come and meet us.”_

_Out on the road, nothing but the skies and wind_

_They say home is where your horse is._

_~~_

There was more, after that, but a lot of it was crossed out, had circles around certain words, question marks jotted in the margins and, in one spot, Reggie had noted _Ask Luke? Can help work out the melody here._

Luke groaned, clinging to the pages and pressing the heels of his hands to his eyes. “I’m the horse,” he grumbled. “I’m the fucking horse.”

He was an ass, more like it, he reasoned with himself. He knew Reggie – knew he could be a goof, obviously, but he also knew that Reggie took music more seriously than almost anyone he had ever met. He knew Reggie better than anyone aside from Alex. Music had been his escape from his parent’s constant fighting, and he used that escape whenever he could get it. Luke was an idiot for thinking he’d do anything music related as _just_ a joke.

Luke looked back down at the first stanza again and sighed, standing up and setting the music down carefully on the piano. He leaned on the instrument for a moment, gathering his courage, and then focused on the tug in his gut that drew him to the other two. He eased off the piano and jumped.

Alex had been right – teleporting did tingle. It started in the gut, worked its way like electricity through Luke’s arms, legs, and toes, and made him feel weightless. One moment, the garage studio. The next, Julie’s bedroom.

Reggie was cross-legged on the bed holding onto one of Julie’s plush animals – a platypus, it looked like, and Luke thought that was kind of amusing. Alex was pressed up close behind him, his legs dangling on either side of Reggie’s body, his arms wrapped around his middle, and his chin on Reggie’s shoulder. Julie was leaning against his left side, and was pointing at the plush and saying something when Alex looked up and saw Luke standing there.

“Done being a dick?” Alex asked, startling the other two.

Luke winced and twisted the ring on his finger. “Yeah. Can we have a second?”

Alex squeezed Reggie tightly, shooting Luke a glare before poofing away. Julie pressed a kiss to Reggie’s cheek as she stood, giving Luke a meaningful look as she passed him and closed the door behind her. “No touching my stuff!” she shouted from the hall.

A smile flickered on Reggie’s face, and then his gaze swung to Luke and it dropped. That stung more than Luke expected. “Julie said you read it,” he whispered, clinging to the platypus. It was green, for some reason.

Luke crossed the room, sitting gingerly on the bed a body’s width away from Reggie. He stared down at the floor, twisting his ring around and around his finger. “I did. Reg, I’m…I’m so sorry. For being a dick about the song, I-I should have read it. I should have known you wouldn’t be joking about your music, a-and even if you were, I-”

Reggie’s hand settled over his, closing around his fingers and tugging Luke’s hand away from his ring. He laced their fingers together. “It’s okay,” he promised, sounding very much like it wasn’t okay. “I get it. I made it sound like a joke the first time, and then I didn’t really actually sit down to talk to you about the song. It’s my bad.”

“It’s _not_ your bad,” Luke snapped, softening when Reggie flinched. “It’s not. It’s on me, dude. I should have bothered to read it, it…”

He trailed off, thinking back to the stanzas he had skimmed back in the garage. A lump settled in his throat. He could see Reggie going pink in the corner of his eye. “That bad, huh?” he tried to joke, and Luke wasn’t having it.

He twisted on the bed, settling both hands on Reggie’s cheeks gently. “No,” he said firmly, staring Reggie in the eye until he nodded. He lowered his hands, reaching out to grab Reggie’s again. “No, it wasn’t bad dude. You should help me write music more often. It…”

Luke’s lips parted, and he studied Reggie’s face thoughtfully. “About us?” he finally asked. “Me, Alex, and Bobby?”

Reggie’s snort was loud. “You think I was including _Bobby_ in that?” He quieted, smile growing a little more gentle. “No, it’s…it’s just you and Alex. Maybe it would have been Bobby if I had written it while we were like, alive. But yeah.”

He ducked his head, fingers tapping nervously against Luke’s knuckles. “I know country music is different now,” he said quietly, staring at the platypus plush. It had a hat, and Luke didn’t understand that part either. “I looked it up on Carlos’ computer – _that_ one confused him,” he chuckled. Grew quiet again – Luke didn’t like that look on Reggie. “There’s some stuff that’s really good, but it’s…it’s really changed since we died. It’s angrier now. I wanted to write something that felt more like what I remember.”

“I didn’t even know you really liked country music,” Luke said feebly.

Reggie chuckled, pulling his hands away from Luke’s and gripping the platypus again. Luke felt like he’d done something wrong. “My Pap really liked country,” he informed him, looking up with a sad glint in his eyes. “Listened to it with me all the time before he died. Um.” He looked down again, running his fingers over the hat – Luke could swear it was a fedora. “My parents really started fighting around then, so I guess it’s the last like…super happy moment from my life before I met you guys. I just…wanted to combine the two.”

Luke wasn’t going to cry. He’d be damned if he cried. That didn’t stop the lump from growing in his throat, though, and he reached out, set his hand on Reggie’s shoulder. Reggie glanced up, searching his face. “Thank you,” Luke said after a long moment, not really sure where to start. “It um…it was really good, dude. It means a…a lot to me, a-and to Alex too, I’m sure. That you wrote it. Has he read it?”

Reggie’s smile was crooked and a little upset still. “Yeah. It’s why he was so mad at you.”

Luke winced, ducking his head. “I’m sorry,” he said, pouring as much feeling as he could into the sentence. “I’m…I’m _so_ sorry, dude. Your music isn’t stupid. It’s never been stupid.”

“I know,” Reggie said, and when Luke looked up, he was smiling a little more genuinely. “But thank you for saying that. It means a lot.”

For a moment they just stared at one another, until a cough from the doorway interrupted them. Alex and Julie were leaning in with small smiles on their faces. “If you guys are done staring at each other like a pining couple,” Alex said, grinning as he was met with squawks of protest, “we do still have a rehearsal we have to do before the gig tomorrow night.”

They both stood, Reggie turning to toss the platypus back on the bed. Luke pointed at it accusingly, looking back at Julie. “Why is that platypus wearing a fedora?” he demanded, because he genuinely wanted to know.

For some reason, Julie burst into giggles and just left, Alex following. Luke would have to figure it out later.

Before Reggie could follow them, Luke caught his wrist. When he glanced back, eyebrow lifted in a question, Luke gave him a shaky smile. "For the record," he said, squeezing his hand gently, "I consider you guys my home too."

Reggie's smile was the brightest Luke had ever seen it.

**Author's Note:**

> The platypus bit was ABSOLUTELY inspired by arareads and their story [Hunt for A Yellow Cafe](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26692189), so go read that when you have a chance lol.


End file.
